Parashchuk Pelagea, Ioahim and Khrystyna

The widow Pelagea Khomenkova lived in Ternopil, earning money by renting the rooms in her house out.

In the end of July 1943, sisters Anna (Hana) and Tosia (Ester) Federbush came to Pelagea’s house. They were the prisoners of the labor camp established in the beginning of the year near the ghetto. The camp was headed by Untersturmfuhrer SS Richard Rokita known for his sadism. A day before the liquidation of the camp the Federbush sisters escaped. They went to the house of Pelagea Khomenkova, about whom they heard from the familiar prisoners. The house owner hid the sisters from the rest of the lodgers. To thank her, they helped to clean the house, wash clothes and cook food.

Closer to the end of 1943, one of the lodgers of Pelagea Khomenkova, who worked as the municipal officer, noticed the girls. Suspecting them to be the Jews, he told the owner to kick the sisters out of the house, threatening to report to the occupation authorities otherwise. Pelagea had to give the Jews the similar clothes to those worn by the local women and take them to her brother Ioahim Parashchuk.

The house, where Ioahim lived with his wife Khrystyna and 5 children, was on the outskirts of the city. There, the Federbush sisters found the ready shelter, where familiar ghetto prisoner Vilo Hofritschter hid.

Three Jews remained in the Parashchuk house until the spring of 1944. Few weeks before the expulsion of the Nazis from the area they resettled to the house of Marta Mazarska, who lived in Yanivka village 8 km West from Ternopil.

After the war, the Federbush sisters left the Soviet Union and migrated to Israel. All their attempts to restore contacts with Pelagea Khomenkova and the Parashchuk family failed.

On July 7, 1983, Yad Vashem honored Pelagea Khomenkova (Parashchuk), her brother Ioahim Parashchuk and his wife Khrystyna Parashchuk with the title “Righteous Among the Nations”.